Page 28 of Lady of Ashes

Mikale snorted in disbelief from the sofa, and her eyes dragged to him. “It is funny you think you have a choice in the matter,” he sneered.

“Mikale,” Alaric warned. “She will come around soon enough.”

Nothing more was said for the next hour, until Lord Tyndell knocked and entered the of?ce, Tarek ?ling in behind him.

“Good Morning, Alaric,” he greeted cordially. “Mikale.” Then his attention swiveled to Scarlett. If she didn’t know he was a conniving bastard, she’d have thought his smile was genuine. “Scarlett, my dear, it is so wonderful to see you.”

“I wish I could say the same, but I’m not a lying asshole like the rest of the people in this room,” she spat back with as much of a sneer as she could muster.

Lord Tyndell let out a chuckle. “Your dinner conversation always did entertain me. And I am told you have begun to master your magic. How delightful.”

Scarlett bared her teeth at him as she ?ipped him her middle ?nger.

Alaric stood at that, coming around to pick up the plate of eggs and toast. “She has refused to eat,” he explained to Balam. “She has also acquired a new Mark.”

“Has she now?” Lord Tyndell asked, a brow arching. “If only someone had not let her escape for a second time, that could have likely been avoided.”

Mikale cursed under his breath from where he sat behind the two men who were clearly superiors to him, aside from the fact that the Assassin Lord was actually a Maraan Prince.

Lord Tyndell crossed the room, crouching down and reaching forward to touch her. Scarlett lurched back, pressing herself as much as possible against the wall. He tsked. “I am not going to hurt you, my dear,” he chided, reaching forward again and brushing the strap of her gown aside so he could see the whole Mark lining her collarbone.

“How can you see it?” she breathed, while Lord Tyndell continued to study her skin.

“Now that your magic has emerged, your glamours are different from Fae since you are not, in fact, Fae,” Lord Tyndell answered simply, his gaze staying ?xed on the Mark.

“If I were Fae, you wouldn’t be able to see it?”

“If you were Fae, I would not be able to see your Fae Marks. However, this is not a Fae Mark,” he replied, pushing back to his feet. He turned to speak to Alaric. “Order her some fresh food. It will take some time, but I should be able to work around that. Getting her to eat, though, should not take too much.”

“Thank you, Balam,” Alaric said, nodding to Tarek to apparently fetch more food.

Lord Tyndell nodded and removed his cloak, moving to lay it across the sofa before coming back to crouch before Scarlett again. Alaric and Mikale came to stand behind him, and Scarlett stared at the three men before her.

No.

At the two Maraan Lords and a Maraan Prince.

“You need to eat, my dear,” Balam said with fake gentleness.

“You need to go to hell,” she bit back, drawing her knees to her chest.

A half grin tilted on the Lord’s lips, and he reached out to grasp her chin between his thumb and fore?nger, forcing her to meet his stare. “Now, now, my dear. If something happens to you, you would cause us to go after someone else you love. You do understand that, don’t you?” Scarlett went utterly still. She tried to jerk her chin from Lord Tyndell, but he held ?rm. “Do you really want to be responsible foranotherdeath?”

Breathing suddenly became dif?cult as she found herself on the ?oor in the stone cell of the Lairwood House. Juliette was lying in her lap, blood pooling from her chest. Her own hand was curled around the dagger.

“No,” Scarlett gasped, releasing the hilt from her hand. It clattered to the ?oor. “This wasn’t my fault. Mikale made me do this.”

“Did he?” came Lord Tyndell’s voice. “If you had done things differently, everybody could have walked out of that cell that day. You should have negotiated better. You could have saved her, and you know it.”

She shook her head at Juliette’s vacant and lifeless eyes staring up at her. “No. This had to happen. It needed to. To set other events into motion,” she answered ?rmly.

“And this death? Did this death need to happen too?”

Scarlett peered out of a hole in a rubbish bin as Dracon began cutting her mother into pieces. Eliné’s screams were echoing off the alley walls.

“Stop!” Scarlett cried, slamming her hands over her ears. “Stop!” “Shh, Scarlett,” Alaric soothed, his voice seeming to come from beside her. She felt a hand stroking through her hair. “You can make this all stop.”

Scarlett opened eyes. She hadn’t realized she had closed them. Her cheeks were wet from tears, and blood was running down her arms from the shackles biting into her wrists as she had yanked on them, trying to bring her hands to her ears outside the vision Lord Tyndell had somehow thrust her into. Her breathing was uneven, and she choked trying to draw air into her lungs that wouldn’t expand. Lord Tyndell was sitting back on his heels, a faint smile on his lips.

---